Wide-Angle Vision: Beat Your Competition by Focusing on Fringe Competitors, Lost Customers, and Rogue Employees

By Wayne C. Burkan

Book Overview

Praise for Wide Angle Vision "In this book, Wayne Burkan shows us that the vantage points from which we view and act can earn us critical advantages if we are willing to stretch our thoughts and practices beyond the edge of conventional thinking." - Robert W. Galvin Chairman of the Executive Committee and former CEO of Motorola "Wayne Burkan's Wide-Angle Vision is a very pragmatic and useful guide to dealing with and implementing change. His concept of 'edge' as it relates to customers, employees, and competitors should help many organizations struggling with the rapidly changing marketplace and the endless panaceas being promoted." - David R. Stamper Vice President and General Manager, Hitachi Data Systems, Latin American Division "At Southwest Airlines, we redefined air transportation by utilizing 'edge thinking.' Wayne Burkan is offering a 'flight plan' that if studied, understood, and followed, will improve your bottom line for the long term. If you really want to be on the 'leading edge' for your product or service, this is the place to begin." - Howard Putnam Speaker, author, and former CEO of Southwest Airlines "Wayne Burkan has brought our attention to a great source of potential opportunities for profitable growth if we take his advice and really listen to those challenging customers, potential customers, small competitors, and unhappy employees whom we often want to dismiss as difficult." - D. H. Davis President and Chief Operating Officer, Rockwell International Corporation "Strategically thought-provoking! It's just what busy leaders need to ensure they are focused on gaining a competitive edge. An easy-to-read wake up call for organizations and managers. Wayne Burkan challenges us to confront the perils of tunnel vision and the promise of a wider perspective. So simple, so clear, so right!" - Donald Himelfarb President, Thrifty Rent-A-Car System, Inc. Conventional business wisdom says to get close to your best customers, watch your biggest competitors, and reward your model employees. This controversial book offers a contrarian viewpoint and introduces a dynamic new way to compete-by broadening your focus beyond mainstream thinking to spot the critical opportunities at the edge of your core business. Wide-Angle Vision opens your eyes to the "edge," from "little guy" competitors preparing to take over the market to disgruntled customers and maverick employees whose complaints can lead to great ideas for change. Listening to complaining employees pays off. That's where the idea for Java(r) , Sun Microsystems' successful Internet programming system, came from. With Wide-Angle Vision, now you can learn how to use "edge" groups to sharpen your competitiveness by reducing surprise, increasing innovation, and satisfying customers. Filled with compelling examples from a range of industries and drawing on Wayne Burkan's extensive consulting experience with IBM, Ford, and others, Wide-Angle Vision equips you with specific action techniques that can enable you to: * Anticipate crises before they occur by using "splatter vision," scenarios, and benchmarking * Find breakthrough solutions to difficult problems by looking outside your field * Create powerful, flexible teams that work-from "edge" teams to ideal teams * Reduce resistance to organizational change through skillful timing, finding perfect change agents, and more * Reengineer with lower risk and greater efficiency, using an effective seven-step plan for change * Avoid tunnel vision by broadening your perspective-to the edges of what's happening in the mainstream In today's rapidly changing marketplace, opportunities are all around you. Wide-Angle Vision gives you the power to look them in the eye and develop the daring skills you need to be a leading-and lasting-"edge" competitor.

• Format: Hardcover
• Language: English
• ISBN: 0471134163
• ISBN13: 9780471134169
• Release Date: August 1996
• Publisher: Wiley
• Length: 288 Pages
• Weight: 1.20 lbs.
• Dimensions: 1.0" x 6.1" x 9.1"

Customer Reviews

What You Block Out May Get the Better of You

How can you detect new trends just as they are emerging? How can you spot opportunities early enough to gain a first-mover advantage? How can you sense impending threats early enough to defend against them? Only by staying alert to influences that at present seem only marginally relevant to your business. You must keep assessing the potential impact of peripheral influences, in case they turn out to be the vanguard of forces that will dominate your future. What makes this so difficult? Many firms assume that the future will be similar to the present and the past. Moreover, radical change can be hard to imagine. And those who benefit from the status quo may want to believe their world is stable. But change happens, whether we like it or not. One of the more intriguing suggestions the author makes is to assemble a team of make-believe advisors - modeled on real people - and imagine the advice they would give about each of the anomalous circumstances you encounter. The exercise is intended to bring you beyond your own habitual ways of thinking, and to help you view possible opportunities and threats from a broader perspective. In these times of rapid change, it is crucial that you detect new trends early, and evaluate their impact before they overtake you. The author offers much useful advice to help you accomplish that. Paul Francis Musgrave, author of Indispensable Marketing Strategies - How to Outwit Your Competition, Attract and Retain Customers, and Multiply Your Profits - Marketing Strategy Secrets for Profitable Small Business Management

An excellent companion to Joel Barker's Future Edge

Read this book jointly with Joel Barkers' Future Edge. It will be an excellent companion. Wayne Burkan has been a collaborator of Joel Barker. In this book, filled with excellent real-world business examples, the author introduces some more interesting concepts to the paradigm phenomenon. The author uses the term EDGE to illustrate his innovative ideas. Most business books postulating the concept of strategic advantage sometimes get too conceptual or even too vague in the approach. This is one book that shows you the tactical and yet practical approaches to gaining a strategic advantage in your business. One of the best learning tools I got out of this book is the power of observation through the application of peripheral vision. The author calls it "splatter vision" or "wide angle vision" which he uses as the book's main title. I understand from my American friends that this is an age-old technique practised by native North American Indians. Henceforth, it is now practised by nature observers, bird watchers and animal trackers. In the book, the author relates an analogy of how Secret Service agents apply "splatter vision" in the field to visually screen out, read the signals quickly - & anticipate - any potential threats against the President. In the business world, I fully agree "splatter vision" is a useful & powerful anticipation tool, with which you can apply to constantly scan the entire business landscape in sweeping motions in order to avoid missing "unexpected gaps" which could be potential threats & /or possible opportunities. In reality, you are: - unfocusing your eyes; - maximising your peripheral vision; - sustaining a soft focus; - increasing your view of the landscape with an almost 180 degree-field-of-vision; in order to avoid becoming so focused that you expect your challenge to come from a specific direction! Another book that can be read in conjunction with these two books, is 'The Whack-A-Mole Theory; Creating Breakthrough and Transformation in Organizations' by Lindsay E. Collier. You will certainly note a common theme throughout these three books.

New perspective on the true value of the customer you hate

Burkan has done a nice job in reminding us about the value of our most irritating customer and our peskiest employee. Pay attention to them! They point us to new markets and new opportunities to create value for our stakeholders